Friday, 22 March 2013

One of the
(many) complexities in the whole ECO landscape is how different organisations
are procuring ECO. I know of a few RPs where the Energy Companies have
been brought in through a relationship with the R&M contractor which
obviates the need for a procurement process. Another popular route seems
to be the frameworks like Re:New. Of course, it’s the usual players on
the frameworks. Finally there’s going the OJEU way – but with the time
scale of ECO who wants to spend months tied up in competitive dialogue?
For all this, what we are seeing most of is procurement being done through
good, old fashioned contacts and customer management without a formal
procurement process. It’s worth remembering that in effect the energy
companies are giving away cash. As one industry insider said to us last
week “Why would I pay (through a tender) to give you money?” So, too
early yet to tell what the preferred way of getting hold of ECO funds is.
As always, we’d love to hear your opinions, thoughts and ideas.

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

On the face of it, it’s a great opportunity. I’m talking about the £1.3bn
ECO fund which launched to much fanfare back in January. To date, I think
most people have been keeping their powder dry and watching what the market
will do. From talking to Registered Providers across the UK many are
still unsure if they have schemes which will work, some are waiting to get the
2013/14 capital budgets approved and others are waiting to see what level of
contribution they could expect to get. It’s our view that organisations
that move early will get some great deals from the energy companies.
There are schemes available with 100% funding – genuinely 100% including all
the associated making good and other works after the measures have gone
in. We working with 40 RPs at the moment and the number is growing by the
week. To find out more about what we’re doing click over here and see for
yourself.